Gamble Skill

Gamble (Wis)
Use this skill to earn credits through games of chance, including sabacc, jubilee, and betting on swoop races.

Check: The amount of your wager and the result of your skill check determine how much money you win or lose during an evening of gambling. You can either gamble against the house or against an opponent (or a group of opponents).

When gambling against the house – such as when playing the jubilee wheel or betting on the outcome of a race – you must declare how many credits you want to wager as your stake for the evening of gambling. Your skill check determines whether you win or lose and by how much after an entire evening of gambling.

Result Wins or Losses
Less than 4 Lose entire stake
5-9 Walk away with 25% of stake
10-14 Walk away with 50% of stake
15-19 Break even, keep entire stake
20-24 Win stake x 1.5
25-29 Win stake x 2
30-34 Win stake x 3
35-39 Win stake x 5
40+ Win stake x 10

When you play against the house, you take a penalty to your Gamble check based on the amount of your wager:

Wager Penalty
Up to 49 -
50 to 199 -5
200 to 999 -10
1,000 to 4,999 -15
5,000 to 19,999 -20
20,000 or more -25

When you play a game of pure chance, the Gamble skill never comes into play at all; simply roll 1d20 and consult the chart below:

d20 Result Outcome
Up to 15 Lose entire stake
16 Break even
17 Win stake x 1.5
18 Win stake x 2
19 Win stake x 5
20 Win stake x 10

When gambling against other opponents – such as major GM characters or other heroes – each character declares an amount to wager for the evening and makes a skill check. The character with the highest result is considered the overall winner after an evening of gambling. (If two or more characters are tied for highest result, they split the winnings.) Each participant, other than the winner, checks his result against the winner’s result, using the difference in the scores to determine how much money is deducted from his stake and added to the winner’s take, as shown on the table below.

Difference Change in Winnings
1-4 Break even; keep your entire stake
5-9 Give 1/10th of stake to winner
10-14 Give ¼ of stake to winner
15-19 Give 1/3 of stake to winner
20-24 Give ½ of stake to winner
25-29 Give 2/3 of stake to winner
30-34 Give ¾ of stake to winner
35+ Lose it all; give entire stake to winner

You can also use the lay-against-the-house system when you gamble with multiple GM characters, if the GM wants to reduce the number of skill checks.

Retry: No, unless you want to put up another stake.

Special: You can’t take 10 or take 20 when making a Gamble check.

A character with the Card Shark feat gets a +2 aptitude bonus on Gamble checks.

A character with the Trick feat gets a +2 aptitude bonus on Gamble checks.

Some additional rules for games of chance cover some specific games of chance.

Time: A Gamble check assumes an entire evening of play, with the result indicating how much you increase or decrease your stake.

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